Office Etiquette

I suspect I’ve written about this before, but I’m getting absolutely fed up with the lack of respect that some people show towards working in a cubicle workplace.  From the stink of food, to conducting too loud teleconferences from your desk, to chatting right next to other people’s cubes – it seems to have got significantly worse recently.  And it’s not just my Chinese colleagues (although they are definitely guilty of it).  Someone nearby who is recently back from maternity leave has proven to be one of the worse – and she is American.  She is loud, even though she wears a headset I can overhear both sides of her shallow conversations and teleconferences, and her food absolutely reeks.  Recently, she has been suffering from a cough – and it was so persistent and aggravating that I had to keep walking away from my desk to stop it driving me crazy.  We’ve all suffered from a bad cough at one point or another, but please have the courtesy to not let everyone else working around you suffer as well.  And all this despite my wearing earbuds and listening to podcasts at my desk to try to drown the noise out.  How do I say something to my cubicle neighbor without sounding like a total douche bag?  I’m incapable of being direct like an American, and instead – just like with noisy apartment neighbors – I end up stewing in my misery.  That is no way to live or work.